Pioneer 10 is the fastest flying object launched by human beings at present. However, the universe is vast and the distance between stars is far away. Even if Pioneer 10 has sailed for 10 billion years, it will not enter the planetary system of other stars (assuming that every star in the Milky Way is connected to this planetary system). It takes about 80,000 years for this spaceship to reach the nearest star, which is about 4.3 light years away.
However, "Pioneer 10" was not launched in the nearest star field. It will fly near the junction of Taurus and Orion, and there are no other stars nearby.
It is conceivable that the only possible situation for this spacecraft to encounter alien civilization is that the latter has great space flight capability, which can intercept and recycle silent abandoned ships in space.
Placing a human message on Pioneer 10 is like a shipwrecked sailor throwing a bottle with letters into the sea-but the ocean of the universe is much wider than any ocean on earth.
1Pioneer 1 1 launched in 1973 has the same exploration task as Pioneer 10, and a metal information board with the same information transmission function is installed on it.
Etched on the gold-plated aluminum plate by etching method and installed on the antenna fixing bracket of Pioneer 10. It is estimated that the corrosion rate in the interstellar universe is very small, and the aluminum information board will remain unchanged for hundreds of millions of years or even longer. Therefore, it will be the longest-lived product made by human beings.
The information itself aims to show the living environment, age and some attributes of the spacecraft manufacturer. The language used is the only language shared by both sides, namely science. The upper left corner shows the hyperfine transitions of parallel and antiparallel protons and electrons of neutral hydrogen atoms. Below this message is the binary number 1. This transformation of hydrogen is followed by the emission of radio frequency photons with a wavelength of about 265,438+0 cm and a frequency of about 65,438+420 MHz, thus conveying the unique distance and time related to the transformation. Because hydrogen is the most abundant atom in the galaxy, the physical phenomena in the whole galaxy are the same, so it is not difficult for advanced civilization to understand this information. In the blank on the right, as a check, also write binary 8. There is a mark on the top and bottom to indicate the total amount, indicating the height of the "Pioneer 10" spacecraft. The image of the spaceship is painted on the back of male and female bodies.
The main part of the left middle picture is a radial pattern, and each thin line also represents some binary numbers. If these numbers are expressed in decimal, they will all be as long as ten digits. These numbers must represent distance and time. If it is a distance, it is several times that of 10 1 1 cm, and dozens of times that of the earth to distance to the moon. But it is impossible to think that they are of any use in transmitting this information, because the distance is constantly changing and complicated by the movement of celestial bodies in the solar system.
However, the time corresponding to these radial lines is like 0. 1 ~ 1 sec. This time is the characteristic of pulsars, which are natural and stable cosmic radio sources. They are fast-rotating neutron stars, produced in a catastrophic big bang. It should be believed that any scientific and prosperous civilized world can regard this radio burst pattern as the position and pulse period of 14 pulse star related to the solar system where the spacecraft is launched without difficulty.
However, pulsars are all known cosmic clocks that are slowing down. The receiver of information must not only ask himself where he can see 14 pulsars arranged in such a relative position, but also ask himself when he may see them. The answer is: it can only be seen in the small space of the Milky Way and a certain year in the history of the Milky Way. There may be 1000 stars in that small space, but only one star conforms to the planetary spacing arrangement shown at the bottom of the chart. The chart also shows the approximate volumes of the planets in the solar system and Saturn's rings. The initial orbit of the spacecraft from the earth and the route through Jupiter have also been marked. Therefore, the information indicates a specific star among about 250 billion stars and a specific year in 10 billion years (1970).
This point in the information content should be easily understood by advanced alien civilizations. Of course, in addition, there is the whole "Pioneer 10" for them to study. For ordinary people on earth, this information may not be clear, but scientists on earth have easily deciphered it. The portrait painted on the right is just the opposite. Alien humans are the product of independent ecological evolution for 4.5 billion years (or more), so they may not be like humans on earth at all. In addition, their traditional perspective and line drawing methods may be different from those on earth, so portraits are the most confusing part of metal information boards.
Considering that in the distant universe, the advanced civilized world of other planets will find the first man-made product flying out of the solar system one day in the distant future, it is a prudent measure to place the golden "greeting card" on the "Pioneer 10" spacecraft. But this information caused a sensation. It has been carefully studied, but the researchers are not aliens, but humans on earth. People all over the world are studying this information, some people criticize it, some people give various explanations, and others put forward other schemes.
Newspapers, TV programs, small literary magazines and national weekly magazines widely copy information graphics.
A huge advertisement on the street of Geneva Tribune, Switzerland: "NASA provides information about life on other planets!" A scientist wrote that he shed tears of joy for a scientific paper for the first time after reading the explanation of the scientific basis of metal information board in the American magazine Science. A reporter from Canon, Georgia, wrote: "Before some unknown space explorer found this special message in the bottle, we were already dead. However, it is this information itself, this imaginative courage, that really aroused a passion in the hearts of me and many people I know, that is, Barber, the first to discover the Pacific Ocean, Levin Hook, the first to use a microscope, and a kind-hearted person. "
However, there are also criticisms that are not directed at pulsar maps, which are the core of information science. The criticism is directed at the portrait of a man and a woman. These two original portraits were created according to the style of Italian sculptor and painter Leonardo da Vinci. We can't think that the men and women in the painting ignore each other and don't draw them hand in hand, lest the recipients of other planets misunderstand that this pair of people is a whole organism with fingertips connected. There is also a precedent on earth: the Aztecs and Incas lived in areas where horses were not produced. They once mistook the Spanish conqueror on horseback for a two-headed monster who was half man and half horse. The man and the woman stand in different positions and postures, so that the flexibility of their limbs can also be shown. The popular perspective and line drawing on the earth may not be easily understood by the recipients of other planets, and they may have their own traditional painting methods.
Raising the right hand is a common gesture of kindness in the "universe". Of course, the literal universality of the universe is impossible. But at least this greeting gesture shows that the thumb and other fingers are relative. Only one of the two people raises his hand, so that life on other planets will not be misunderstood as that one arm of human beings is born bent at the elbow.
Some people say perspective is too difficult to express. He believes that intact male and female bodies should be sent to the universe, and said that the low temperature in the universe can completely play a role in anti-corrosion, and these bodies can be used for careful study by creatures on other planets.
Professor Cambridge is the dean of Warburg College, a major art school in London. He criticized the portraits of men and women in Scientific American magazine and asked: "The evolution of alien creatures may not have produced vision that can see the wavelength of visible light. How can they see this information? " The answer comes from the laws of physics. Because of these three intramolecular changes, the planet's atmosphere can only absorb the light emitted by the nearest star. The first is the change of the energy state of a single electron in an atom. This conversion occurs in the ultraviolet, x-ray and gamma-ray parts of the spectrum and tends to make the planet's atmosphere opaque at this wavelength. The second is that in a specific molecule, when two atoms oscillate relative to each other, a vibrational transition will occur. This transformation often makes the atmosphere opaque in the near infrared region of the spectrum. The third is that the free rotation of molecules makes them undergo rotational transition. This shift tends to absorb far infrared rays. Therefore, radiation from nearby stars usually penetrates the planet's atmosphere and will not be absorbed by the atmosphere.
In fact, this part is the main "window" for astronomers to explore the universe from the surface of the earth. However, the radio wavelength is too long, and it is impossible for creatures with reasonable length to see the surrounding images with the "eyes" of radio wavelength. Therefore, it is reasonable to think that it is quite common for creatures living on planets around stars in the whole galaxy to receive light frequency.
However, even assuming that the visual field of these creatures is limited to the infrared range (or gamma ray range) so that they can intercept "Pioneer 10" in the universe, they will still have some advanced means to see this metal information board outside their visual frequency by scanning, which may not be too much. Because the lines engraved on the information board are darker than the gold-plated aluminum background, even in the infrared region, the image is still completely visible.
The arrow is used to indicate the direction of the spacecraft launch orbit, and Combridge also criticized it. He thinks that only the civilized world developed from the hunting society like us can understand the meaning of the arrow. However, to understand the meaning of the arrow, people from other planets are not required to have particularly developed intelligence. There is a line from the third planet in the solar system, and the end of the line stops somewhere in interstellar space, where a spaceship is painted, which is the real thing intercepted by the information discoverer. The information board is fixed on this object.
The relative distance between the planets in the solar system and the sun is engraved on the lower part of the metal information board and expressed by the binary concept, which also shows that our common arithmetic is based on 10. It took some effort on the information board to draw that human beings have 10 fingers and toes. I hope that no matter what kind of alien creatures can infer that we use arithmetic based on 10, some of us count with our fingers: seeing our thick and short toes, they may also infer that our ancestors once lived in trees, and we evolved from these ancestors.
Of course, there is also a message of "Pioneer 10" designed by human beings, which may be puzzled by it. But we don't think this will happen. We wrote this information in common language (except for male and female portraits). Cosmic people don't know English, Russian, Chinese or Esperanto, but they must have knowledge of mathematics, physics and astronomy like us. People are sure that they can understand the information we write in the language of the Milky Way, that is, the language of science, without much effort.
But we may be wrong. There is an article in the British humor magazine Clumsy with the title "According to the Paris Herald Tribune, only one of the 65,438+00 scientists of NASA can guess the meaning of the information. So, how likely is it that cosmic people understand information? " This article studies the possible complete misinterpretation of information by cosmic people, which is the most interesting description. Xiao Xiao chose the opinions of four cosmic people as his representatives. This article should be read against the illustrations.
"So I still want to emphasize that at present, we are all guessing that no one can explain clearly the meaning of the imaginary point at the bottom of the picture. One explanation is that it may be a railway map of a big city drawn for us, but we don't think this explanation takes into account the overturned yacht or the trowel used in the garden as shown by the arrow. The picture also includes a naked blonde, which looks very much like a joke sent to us by a backward planet. This may be the kind of joke that is popular in the life of the earth. "
"As a skinny spider with only 14 legs," said a voice from the back of Andromeda's ninth planet, "I have studied postcards of creatures on earth, and I sneer at them. They portrayed our species as a cartoon, which was clumsy and inappropriate. Among other distortions, they even painted our right leg longer than the other 13 legs. Also, the geometric creature standing upright behind clearly turned its back on us, and one of the other two creatures stretched out five tentacles in a very despicable posture. Our clever spiders have no reason to doubt that this is a declaration of war. The creature on the right shows the ability to shoot an arrow from the shoulder, and its intention is particularly evil, which ominously indicates that we will launch a protracted and deadly war with the creatures on earth. "
Another creature said, "No matter what it is, it will not travel long distances here for no reason;" I guess this thing wants to send us some kind of message. As a starting point in our discussion, I assume that this thing in front of me is not a creature itself, but an artificial product. This hypothesis may first explain why this thing hasn't spoken yet. It is not a creature, it is sent (possibly from some primitive three-dimensional world). I want to say that this is a picture or a code, which contains the information passed to us. Of course, the content of the information depends on which side is the top. I wouldn't be surprised if the content of the information was rude. "
"Wonderful!" The creatures in Centauri were stunned. "wonderful! As far as the materials are concerned, this is the first time that we have received the original works of former land creature Leonardo da Vinci on our planet. Our telescope shows that this is really Leonardo da Vinci's style. In any case, this discovery will definitely help us to correct some existing information about intelligent life on earth. Before that, we didn't know that the earth was warm and the police could stand guard outside without clothes. We didn't know that the main limbs of the earth people were obviously affected by lines. Let's hope that the earth people will send some simple greeting cards soon. " ,
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